


Skin and Ink

by DearSeptember



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Choose Your Own Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Forehead Kisses, Hurt/Comfort, Pain, Post-Canon, Romance, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-01-14 21:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18485146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearSeptember/pseuds/DearSeptember
Summary: I have a headcanon that at some point in time Zevran offers to give the Warden a tattoo. Throw in some flirting, a confused Dalish, and an hefty dose of hurt/comfort, and you have this story. I've never written for Zev before, but it was great fun to finally do so. Despite all my love for Anders, Zevran is (and always will be) my first/favorite Dragon Age character. He is so vastly underrated as a romance option, and definitely has the most tragedy to work with in terms of backstory in this humble writer's opinion. I'm hoping to be able to write more for him in the future!***Note***This is a sort of choose-your-own adventure fic! Following, there will be a happy ending choice, and a sad ending choice. They will be labeled as such in the chapter titles, so click 'next chapter' with caution.I always flip-flop on canon Wardens to pair with Zev, and what their ending should be, so I wanted to include both options.Oh yeah, the name of the Warden in this fic is Rhea. It's pronounced "Ray."





	1. Tattoo

**Author's Note:**

> I have a headcanon that at some point in time Zevran offers to give the Warden a tattoo. Throw in some flirting, a confused Dalish, and an hefty dose of hurt/comfort, and you have this story. I've never written for Zev before, but it was great fun to finally do so. Despite all my love for Anders, Zevran is (and always will be) my first/favorite Dragon Age character. He is so vastly underrated as a romance option, and definitely has the most tragedy to work with in terms of backstory in this humble writer's opinion. I'm hoping to be able to write more for him in the future!
> 
> ***Note***
> 
> This is a sort of choose-your-own adventure fic! Following, there will be a happy ending choice, and a sad ending choice. They will be labeled as such in the chapter titles, so click 'next chapter' with caution. 
> 
> I always flip-flop on canon Wardens to pair with Zev, and what their ending should be, so I wanted to include both options. 
> 
> Oh yeah, the name of the Warden in this fic is Rhea. It's pronounced "Ray."

     There it was. He was doing it _again_.

     Rhea Mahariel squinted from across the fire at the newest member of their ragtag party. She could not put a name to the feeling in the pit of her stomach as she caught the amber eyes flitting in aversion each time she caught them in her gaze. He had been doing it since they returned to camp; studying her every movement like a rabbit before her arrow was upon it. If he feared her at all, however, he did not allow it to show. Perhaps she was the prey after all.

       _Again_.

     “So if we take the trail to the north, we should…wait…no…Maker, this map makes no sense.”

     Alistair sat near her, thumbing through stacks of torn and dampened papers. Every so often he would pause to take a bite from the bowl of stew beside him, eyebrows furrowed with the utmost concentration. Leliana hovered above him, offering her own opinions of what their next move should be. She was largely ignored. Morrigan had long given up on voicing any advice, and returned to her tent muttering something about "the fool hound being smarter than any of you." The hound in question lay at Rhea's side, snoring lightly. Every so often he would let out a deeper sigh, until finally he too returned to the tent. It was just the two of them awake. 

     And Zevran stared. It vexed her—annoyed her—so that finally she stood, pins and needles having gathered in the soles of her feet from remaining idle. She chewed at the inside of her cheek as she approached the would-be assassin, hands dancing over the pommel of the dagger at her hip. It wasn’t necessary, though. If Zevran noticed her movement at all, he simply was ignoring it, sipping once more from the flask beside him. Rhea cleared her throat, and spoke the first words that came to mind.

     “Your Vallislan…they do not look like any I have seen before. Are they different in Antiva?”

     The other elf opened a single eye in acknowledgement, only sitting up when he realized she was talking to him.

     “You mean my tattoos?”

     “Your what?” The word rang familiar. She had heard it once before, spoken from the tongue of a young man who joined their clan from an alienage. She meant to ask him what he was talking about, but before she could he had reached out as though to touch her face. It ended in two nearly-broken fingers, and a stern talking to by the Keeper. After that, he avoided her at all costs.

     “The paintings on my face, yes?”

     "Yes! What do they mean?”

      Zevran searched for an answer, shrugging, “Ah well, I do not think that they _mean_ anything.”

     “I don’t understand…they must mean something.”

     “Well…I suppose they are meant to accentuate the features of the body…so the wearer must have something worth accentuating, yes?” He punctuated the statement with a wink.

     “But why would you have them if they mean nothing?”

     “Oh, I would not say that they mean _nothing._ A tattoo can hold a great deal of importance.” Rhea watched the tips of his fingers as they drummed along the curve of his jaw in the thought. “They can commemorate an event, or a fond memory, or even a person. Like a reminder that you keep on your flesh, yes?”

     She nodded. The markings on his face stretched and move when he spoke, and for the first time she truly noticed them. She watched the way they wrapped around the sharp edges of his cheekbones, making them seem more prominent. They drew her eyes to the glinting in his, and to the small scar across the bridge of his nose; another reminder carved into the tanned skin of his face. Her own cheeks began to grow warm as she studied him, gaze falling to the corners of his lips.

     The inks pressed into her own skin felt heavier. They were not something that she thought of; simply a part of her. She recalled the day she received them. The pain was like nothing she had experienced before or since, but she swallowed back her cries. Any noise meant that one was not ready, and she wanted more than anything to prove herself worthy of such an honor. They were symbols at the time, now more akin to souvenirs of a life she left behind.

     “I…I think I understand.”

     “I have more if you would like to see?”

     “Really!” She cursed herself for sounding so enthusiastic. By chuckle in his voice, Zevran had noticed. He sipped again from the leather flask, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of a shirt that was just slightly  _too_ unbuttoned.

     “Yes, but I am afraid it is much too cold to show you out here. Perhaps in the privacy of your tent?”

     The warmth in her cheeks spread through the rest of her body. She tried to hide the racing of her heart with a scowl, but the red in her face was unmistakable even in the dimming glow that surrounded them.

     And Zevran laughed. 

 

* * *

 

     

     “You’re truly sure that I am not hurting you, my dear?”

     The Antivan elf glanced upward, his grasp delicately wrapped around the thin of his lover’s wrist. The fingertips of his opposite hand were stained in black ink, a needle pressed firmly between them.

     “You are when you keep stopping like that!” Despite her protests, Rhea’s voice held no real malice. She smiled at him, pressing her lips to his forehead. “I’ll tell you if it hurts. Keep going.”

     Neither of them was quite sure when it happened. Long stares of suspicion across the campfire softened into warm laughter, and tiny smiles they hid from their companions. Questions turned into answers, and those turned into conversations that lingered until the sun drenched the horizon in its dewy glow.

     The first time she kissed him it was an accident; a reaction after too many days spent beneath the earth in the Deep Roads. Upon their return—bruised, bloodied, bereft of all sensibility as to who might have been watching—she rushed into his arms, nearly knocking him to the ground. It tasted like copper. Copper, and spices, and the burn of brandy that spread like fire through her veins. He lay with her that night, and she wept against his shoulder because she knew that she had fallen. Now—sitting beside him on a feathered mattress in the Arl’s estate—those same tears prickled at the backs of her eyes. In the morning, nothing would be the same.

     “Zev?”

     “Yes?”

     “What do you think will happen tomorrow?”

     Zevran swallowed. He knew how to kill. He knew how to deceive. He knew how to close his mind to everything except the task at hand. He was a Crow; the best of them. All the training in Thedas, however, could not keep a tremble from his voice as he forced a small laugh through the lump at the bottom of his throat.

     “Well now, I would say you are better at not getting killed than anyone I know.” He paused, dipped the needle into the clay pot held in the crook of his bare knee, then resumed rhythmically piercing the flesh of her arm. “Ogres, werewolves, abominations, _highly skilled, and sexy_ assassins. This Archdemon does not know what is coming for it.”

     “Zev…”

     “What more can it throw at us; darkspawn?”

     “Zevran.”

     “I am surprised it has not already tucked its tail between its scaly legs, and run back off to the Deep Roads.”

     “ _Zevran!”_

He  _was_ a Crow;  _was_ the best of them. But his mind had softened, heart opened. Killing was still easy of course, but each battle came with new and terrifying thoughts. When once he had thrown himself in front of death to escape the weight of his own guilt, he now feared it. Once he had run from the feelings that plagued him endlessly, now he would gladly drown in them. Once he had known that nothing could reach him. Nothing could soothe the nightmares of his past, but he changed.  _She_ changed him. The earring he gave her glinted from behind dark waves tangled in her ears. When she spoke again, he wished that he could not hear the words that fell from her lips.

     “One of us dies. You know that.”

     “If I may remind you, Riordan has offered.”

     “ _Riordan_ _might not make it._ If he doesn’t…”

     “What about Alistair; is he not the senior Warden between the two of you?”

     “Barely, and Ferelden cannot be without a King for a second time. If there is a final blow to be made, I should be the one to take it.”

     The room rang with silence so loudly that even the beating of their hearts seemed like a deafening cacophony. Rhea closed her eyes. She tried to focus not on the wrenching pain in her chest, instead on the burning sensation against her wrist. They stayed like that all too long, and at the same time, not long enough. An eternity in that moment would have been too short.

     “There.” He wiped the cloth across her skin a final time, brushing the hair from his eyes to view his work. “It is finished.”

      Rhea looked down at the ink etched into her skin. The flesh was raw, raised, dotted with blood. She half-wondered if she would be able to hold a dagger in the morning the way it ached. It was perfect.

     “Leaves?”

     “Elfroot,” he said. He set the clay pot on the nightstand beside the bed, reaching to lift her hands in his own. “Strong, despite the odds against it. Resourceful, making its home anywhere it can find. Beautiful, though some people may not understand its value. What do you think?”

     She gazed upon the tattoo once more, watching the delicate vines spinning across her arm. Of course she recognized the herb, how could she not? It sung of home. An omnipresent reminder of the trials she had faced with her clan, and as a Warden. Without meaning to, she let out a small sob. Zevran—her assassin, friend, lover; the only thing in this world she had ever wanted to selfishly keep—wrapped his arms around her neck. In a whisper she asked,

    “What does it mean?”

    He pressed his lips to her cheek, to her neck, and finally to her mouth. When he pulled away, steady streams of droplets ran freely down his face. He lifted her chin, calloused thumbs brushing away the tears that had gathered beneath her eyes.

     “It means make it through this, Mi Amore.”

 

           

 

 

           


	2. Warm (Happy Ending)

     The air is warm in Antiva.

     It’s warmer than she ever thought possible.

 

      But it’s a dry heat. Despite the breeze off the Rialto bay her hair never sticks to her skin the way it did in the hottest months of Ferelden. Instead, the wind is gentle, constant. It cools the sweat from her forehead as she rests against the marble banister.

      “We were surrounded on all sides, werewolves closing in around us. My weapons had been knocked from my hand; I was sure I would be killed by those horrid creatures—”

      “But you weren’t!” A child with the same glinting eyes as his father, and tiny freckles across his nose draws a wooden sword from the loop of his belt.

      “’Cause Mama saved you!” Another chimes in. She tugs on his sleeve, the unruly curls of her hair bouncing as she jumps in excitement.

       “Zev,” Her eyes roll almost to the back of her head. “I hope you’re not telling them stories that will give them nightmares again.”

     The tattooed elf nearly jumps at the sound of her voice, eyes softening when he catches her gaze. His complexion has grown darker in the months spent in his homeland, the ink etches into it faded slightly with time.

     “This tale is far more tame than the one about the walking corpses, fear not.”

     The corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles. Even when he doesn’t, small lines still adorn the skin there. He does not remember a time when he has smiled more.

     “I want to fight a werewolf!” Luis cries. His two front teeth are missing.

     “You _can’t._ They’re all _gone_ ‘cause of Mama.” Lucia rolls her eyes, crossing her arms at her brother. He sticks out his tongue at her.

     “You can fight the dog. He is almost like a werewolf, yes?”

     Luis’ eyes light up, and he bounds across the courtyard toward the Mabari lying in a pool of sunlight. An almost frown crosses its graying muzzle as the child approaches, weapon drawn. His sister chases after him, never one to be left out.

     It’s warm in Antiva, and the sounds there are unlike any she has ever experienced. The soft din of the market reaches them even above the rooftops. Omnipresent are the strumming of lutes, and other stringed instruments that seem to only fade in the earliest hours of the morning. She closes her eyes, focusing on the crashing of waves against the shore in the far distance. They flutter open to the tickle of a voice against her ear.

     “Mi amore…”

     “Mmm?”

     He moves behind her to wrap his arms around the full swell of her belly, lips pressed to the back of her neck. And for a moment they stay like that, wrapped in sunlight.

     “I love you.”

     And the words are warm; warmer than all of Antiva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my canonical play through, Zevran's Warden always dies saving Thedas. In this alternative ending I wanted to pepper in as much sappy, cheesy, everything-they-deserve-and-more-ness as possible.


End file.
